So Guild Wars 2 is coming out this week. Well, actually, it’s coming out next Tuesday for all the people that didn’t pre-purchase it, but I’m sure you’re all too cool to have passed up an opportunity to pay $60 for an MMO you hadn’t even played yet.

But regardless of how wise or unwise you are with your prospective purchases, we here at Twenty Sided (which is to say me, Randy, Chris, and Mumbles) are putting together a Twenty Sided guild in Guild Wars 2. Shamus would like to help, but apparently he’s busy fighting Kai Leng and saving the Council or maybe just writing a book and getting ready to move. I’m not really sure.

Following our typical “What’s a plan?” style of planning, we don’t actually… have a name for the Guild yet. I suggested something along the lines of “Eikosi League” both because it sounds suitably fantastic and because “eikosi” is Greek for “twenty” and the first component of the word “icosahedron” – the shape of the twenty sided die. Randy thinks that might be a bit too obscure, though, so if you have a better suggestion, then by all means, suggest it.

Oh yeah, and we can’t have the obvious guild tag [d20] because apparently you can’t have numbers in your guild tag. So we’re looking for one of those too.

We also don’t know which server we’ll be on, but not, in this case, because of a lack of planning. See, in Guild Wars 2, your home server is largely unimportant except for determining which team you’ll be on for World vs World (the great big realm PvP mode). Eventually you’ll be able to guest to any other server you have friends on and play with them like you would anyone on your own server. I say “eventually” because guesting isn’t apparently going to be in the game at launch. But, on the upside, you’ll be able to transfer home servers for free with no time restrictions after launch until they get the guesting system going.

Anyway, Randy is scoping out the WvW scene and trying to find a good server to make our permanent home, which is taking longer than expected because apparently a bunch of other guilds are doing the same thing. But don’t worry, we’ll figure it out and have a post with the full server information before the game comes out.

And remember, you can join multiple guilds at once in Guild Wars 2, so joining our guild won’t keep you from joining your other friends’ guild too. And we plan to do just about everything, from PvE to PvP and everything in between.

It stems from the Bioshock season of Spoiler Warning, when Mumbles was introduced to the cast. She was enamored with the insect swarm plasmid, and was known to shout “Beeeeeeees” when it was used (or to encourage its use). Beeeeees was sort of the old cannibalism.

Optimally, we’ll (and I’m here making an assumption that I’ll be able to let go of WoW long enough to play) horrify people so much that they’ll end up shouting “oh god bees” in the not terribly distant future.

Excellent plan! A few friends from the Mysterium are planning on hanging on “Jade Quarry” initially, if all ‘yall want to start there. As you say, it’s easy to migrate. Looking forward to it!
BTW: I’m dudecon.5106

As far as guild names go… that depends on what the guild is focused on. What are the guild goals? Why have a guild? (I know there are reasons, but I don’t know what OUR reasons are.)

This server-hopping thing sounds pretty awesome, shame it isn’t advertised more. I remember being annoyed earlier about having to select 1 server and having some pretty dire warnings that this choice was important and permanent. That and only having 5 character slots is my main fault with the game at the moment :)

It does. I was really worried because I’ve got at least three different group of people I’d hope to play with, and I’m betting they won’t choose the same servers, and trying to convince anyone is impossible since they themselves also have different people they’d like to play with.

While I still need to check if my laptop can run the game (All signs point to yes, since the requirements don’t seem that high and I’ll be setting the graphics to low to maximize fps anyway), this game looks like it’ll be the thing that will finally break my WoW addiction.

Yes. Though you can only “represent” one at a time, which means you can only watch guild chat and earn Influence (guild currency) with one at a time. So really it’s less about letting you play with every guild you could want to play with at once, and more about letting you guild-hop at your leisure and without bugging officers in your guild to let you back in.

Oh, and a guild can technically be cross-server, but each server will have its own influence pool and won’t be able to benefit from the upgrades constructed by guildmates on other servers, so it’s really just a chat channel at that point. It’d be best for everyone to end up on the same home server as soon as possible.

Anyway.

I like “Eikosi League”. I’d suggest trying to work “edra” in there, as in “eikosaedra” for the full “Twenty Sided” effect…but “edra” can also mean “anus”, so, there’s that. You will never look at dice the same way again.

Ahhh, Guild Wars, a truly interesting game. Unfortunately you DO have to pay for it, and considering I can barely hear you from sound of the engine of my tank and the cacophony of war in World of tanks (FREE) and the sound of distant laser thunder of Planetside 2, I don’t think I’ll be joining you.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this, and see if I can arrange things so that my current guild and this one end up on the same realm once the free transfer period is over. I am super pumped for this game though.

You know, I barely registered Guild Wars 2 talk, and have almost been jaded against it by some of its most vocal fans. Not ones like Josh, but the ones who enter any MMO related discussion like they’re bringing wisdom down from the mountaintop.

However, a Twenty Sided guild is making me want to check this whole thing out. No subscription fee is nice, though I still have to justify the game cost to myself. I haven’t purchased a full price game in age. Decisions, decisions.

I wasn’t going to pre-purchase, but my wife talked me into it. We were in Gamestop buying a DS game, she hands me the box and says “Go on, you’ll enjoy it!” and I couldn’t resist.
…
You know, looking back on it, that has all kinds of unhealthy parallels. Ignore all that though. Go on and buy Gw2!

Well the cautionary part of me wants to tell you to pass up on Guild Wars 2 if MMO’s have traditionally caused problems for you. However if you think you can pace yourself or whatever would be the right way to put it, GW2 is quite fun from what I’ve played in the beta.

One more reason for me to avoid the game. I’m sure I’ll endure more flames than a Texas BBQ for this, but I can’t stand Felicia Day. First off, nothing turns me off of something faster than overhype and overuse, and it seems like nowadays, nothing enjoyed by geek or nerd culture can be considered complete without being graced by Miss Day’s presence.

Secondly, I really don’t see what it is that makes her so popular. It’s definitely not her acting talent, as she has exactly one character personality. If you’ve seen her once, you’ve seen every performance she gives.

Lastly, (and this one is a bit odd, I admit) it bothers me that she always looks like she has a perpetual cold. Call it a bizarre psychological reaction or something, but when I see people who look sick, it makes me feel sick, and I don’t particularly enjoy watching shows that make me constantly feel a need to blow my nose.

Asura were first introduced in GW1 with the Eye of the North expansion as a setup for GW2, so no I’m not speaking from a position of ignorance.

When they were first announced and images and descriptions were released, there was an uproar among the playerbase – there was a full on propaganda campaign complete with organized player protests in the game; the devs even responded by sending in waves of Mursaat to wipe out the players – good times :)

I can’t tell if you’re misremembering or being intentionally misleading, but those protests weren’t started because people hated the asura. Not directly, at least. People were upset that the Mursaat didn’t play more of a role in the expansion (when, truth be told, their story was summed up quite nicely in a few sidequests: we had basically been successful in wiping them out, and the remaining Mursaat had gone into hiding, vowing vengeance in the unspoken future). The presence of asura did not, in itself, preclude the presence of Mursaat. If you went into that protest thinking that everyone there hated the asura themselves, sorry, but you were mistaken.

And yes, I was well aware that they were in EotN when I made my last comment. I’ve played GW1 nearly constantly for over 7 years; I know my lore. My point is this: if you haven’t seen them in GW2, you really don’t know how they’re portrayed in GW2, and I can say with absolute certainty that they are MUCH more interesting in GW2 than they were in GW1. I went into the betas thinking that I would hate the asura and their storyline, because they were arrogant little snots in GW1 and that’s really not how I wanted my character to act, but I was sold before I even finished the beta personal storyline. ANet really has a lot of fun with the race, and it’s refreshing to have a more light-hearted story to go with the human, norn, sylvari, and charr stories, all of which are much more serious (in general).

So, I repeat, if you haven’t played GW2, you really don’t know if the asura are to your liking, because they are not nearly as unpleasant a race as they were in GW1. And then of course there’s the fact that you’re refusing to play the game ostensibly because you don’t like one of the five playable races…which in itself is a bit odd. Just don’t roll an asura?

The protests were twofold, yes; but there was also the extensive anti-asura “ad campaign” on forums, etc. (I will forever have ingrained in my mind the image of the grinning asura with the added caption “I pooped my pants!”, I wish I could find that one). The whole idea and appearance of the Asura was just so ridiculous that it was far too easy to make fun of them. They were magic rabbits with creepy grins, and were somehow supposed to be this powerful race and not just the Charr’s after-dinner snacks? No thanks.

“So, I repeat, if you haven’t played GW2, you really don’t know if the asura are to your liking, because they are not nearly as unpleasant a race as they were in GW1.”

If that’s the case, then I call it bad marketing on Anet’s part, in which case they have only themselves to blame for any backlash. EotN was essentially a preview to GW2, and if they screwed up the characterization of the race that badly, then it’s not my fault for basing my assumptions on their failed preview. Frankly, it’s not worth my time or money to take the risk to discover how bad their mistake was, or if the early representation was truly accurate.

“And then of course there’s the fact that you’re refusing to play the game ostensibly because you don’t like one of the five playable races…which in itself is a bit odd. Just don’t roll an asura?”

Because whether or not I roll an Asura does not negate the fact that it is unlikely I would be able to play through the game without having to experience or be in contact with the Asura, whether as PCs or NPCs. I loathe the little snotwipes; they were the worst addition to GW period. To me, they mark the downfall of the first game; a game I played loyally for years, and then stopped when after playing partway through the last expansion, I could stand them no longer. They just grated on my nerves so much that I couldn’t keep going through the storyline. Every time one of them spoke, I wanted to smack it so hard it landed in Pre-sear. Why should I pay money to subject myself further to something I find so agitating and irritating?

I’m sure some people love the little pukes and think they’re cute or something (these are probably the same people who want Kung-Fu Panda in their WoW). As far as I’m concerned, the Asura have no place in GW; they don’t fit the world, and they’re just plain annoying. Sorry, but I don’t pay money to be annoyed; there’s plenty in life I can find to annoy me for free!

Eikosi League is great. You should keep it. So what if it’s obscure? The entire nerd culture’s schtick is about being obscure.

On an unrelated subject, Shamus: How come I haven’t heard of you about the re-release of Final Fantasy VII? Not about the quality of the release itself (nothing special, Square Enix just made it compatible with new PCs, upped the resolution and added achievements and cloud saving), but about the fact that Squeenix outfitted it with the 4 (four) worst kinds of DRM in existence: SecuROM, online activation, activation limits (with no revoke tool, apparently) and always-on internet required to play.

Honestly, I had thought that after hearing about that you would have had a heart attack and wept for a week about the downfall of gaming companies. I know I did.

Actiony combat of Dark Souls, with much much more actual content so they don’t have to kill the player over and over again in order to stretch the game out. Also you can play with other people, it gets rid of most of the worst MMO BS that, IMO, makes playing traditional MMOs such a headache.

If I may list some examples: no kill-stealing, no node-ninjaing, no getting rejected from a group because they MUST fill their last slot with a healer/tank/whatever, no running away from other players when you’re out questing because you don’t want them to steal your kills/bear asses/whatever, no more feeling like your actions have zero impact on the world around you, no more endless gear treadmill grind endgame, no more being restricted to only playing in designated zones in order to progress adequately (you can go back to lower-level zones and get level-appropriate experience and drops, and you’re scaled down in power so the content is still challenging)….there’s more but you wanted this to be fast, right?

Oh, and you can PvP in both small scale battlegrounds (5v5) and epic sieges (500v500v500). Good luck getting that with Dark Souls.

From a pure dollar:time analysis, you’ll get more for your money with GW2, I guarantee it.

And thank you very much that helped a lot. Since I’m a PvP fiend in MMOs (probably the only reason I stayed with WAR as long as I did) this is a very big draw to me. The level scaling is also rather nice sounding so I think I know what I’m getting now.

Dee Twenty [DXX] sounds good to me.
Might I recommend as a server Stormbluff Isle, where me and mine will be.
Primarily because there’s already a great community site for it: http://stormbluffisle.com/

Sounds pretty good to me, particularly given that none of my gaming friends are even aware of GW2. This way I won’t have to play solo in an MMO again; should be a lot more fun actually playing with people interested in the game for a change.